


Directive 1304.26

by myrmeraki



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Angst, Disillusionment, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Oval Office, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29199942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrmeraki/pseuds/myrmeraki
Summary: *brief mention of past suicidal ideation. it's a single sentence of reference, but as a possible TW it's there*"E1.2.8.2.1. An applicant shall be rejected for entry into the Armed Forcesif, in the course of the accession process, evidence is received demonstrating that theapplicant engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited another to engage in ahomosexual act or acts" NUMBER 1304.26 December 21, 1993
Relationships: Implied Josh Lyman/Sam Seaborn
Comments: 7
Kudos: 25





	Directive 1304.26

**Author's Note:**

> it's projecting onto sam seaborn hours here we go!! leave a comment if you'd like, i live off of them

They'd had three days. Three gravitational, insurmountable, possible days. Sam should have said he wasn't fooling himself. He should have realized a long time ago that grit and optimism and memos and speeches and meetings, however enthusiastic, could not overcome a century and more of hate.

But Sam was here, he was Deputy Communications Director, he was thirty-five years old, and this was as grown as he was going to get. He thought, in the back of his mind, maybe it would work out and they could get that change. A small group of thoughtful committed people's servants, or just him all alone shaking his hands at the Capitol and writing persuasions until his wrists ached.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Sam did ask. He asked why why _why_ on earth hadn't they done something about this through the entire term up until now. And what did they have to show for it?

Sam looked to the file in his hands, the death sentence, the guillotine, the series of papers that told them what could be summed up in four words that Sam had known since he was in middle school: _America Doesn't Want Queers_. They never did, and after three days of pleading and scanning every pathway for change, _they don't want you, don't you get it?_ Not even if you'll kill yourself for them overseas; the blood is too dirty.

Bartlet, Leo, CJ, Toby, and Josh stood in a semi-circle around him. Sam had never felt hopeless, especially in the Oval Office. But now he didn't know what to do with his hands.

"We-"

"If you say 'we tried' CJ I'm. . ." Sam trailed off and shook his head.

"We did all we could," CJ said, " _You_ did all you could."

"And that worked out so well," Sam said. He bit back his tongue. Cynicism tasted ugly on him, that was Josh's crown to wear.

"It's not your fault. You did more than enough, son. You did _more_." Bartlet turned away from the windows and back towards the center of the room. Sam was the hurricane, and he was the eye, and he was the fragile houses along the shore.

“No, it's not, it's not, it is not enough!” Sam huffed a shaking laugh through his nose. He knew he must look and sound at his limit, pushed so far towards the edge all he could do was marvel at the wonderful view.

“The veterans on the street living meal to meal. The men and women risking their lives day in and day out for a country that doesn't even want them-“ Sam's voice cracked down the middle like a waterlogged vase in a high-fire kiln.

For once Toby let him stay on his soapbox. For once he met Sam's eyes and instead of the gentle frown and an unspoken warning there was a glassy stillness. Maybe he knew how much Sam needed it, or how much it meant to him. Or most terrifying of all, maybe he was just tired, just tired, just how they were all so fucking tired.

"Sam," Leo said his name like it was pulled saltwater taffy. He was coming up on that line you didn't cross, no matter how angry or sad or tired or broken to pieces you were, you didn't cross that line speaking with The President, and you didn't do it in the oval office standing with one foot on the Eagle's beak and the other sprawled on _E Pluribus Unum_.

Sam knew what coming but he did not brace himself.

"We've all heard the speech," Leo said. Instead of venom, the words sounded like a sphere of melting ice. A few decibels louder and the vowels sharper and Sam would have stopped, he would have quit, he would have folded into himself. Instead, the softness felt like a challenge to keep pushing at the edge of the box. Sam knew where the line was, and he was nothing if not good at living on two lives at once. 

The President didn't say anything. He didn't have to. Jed Bartlet hired all of them so they could do and say certain things he couldn't, Sam knew this. Leo was the push and the pull of the rules of the game, to set them all straight and push them past the mud. He would be the first to say, "the ends justify the means" and the last to suggest said means. He was a good man.

And Sam? Sam was a starry-eyed idealist, the kid-brother of the writing team, the aching optimist hoping not despite knowledge of the playing field but because of it. That was the role he had to play. That was who he was. Sam didn't know where he fell, what was true, what was scripted, but it made him want to draw red lines across his pages and rewrite them all by himself.

“It doesn't matter to them that we tried and got a footnote in Congress, it doesn't matter that we played the game, they don't care about that! The American people don't care about all this red tape.” Sam waved the file in his hands as he spoke, and the flaps of paper started to sound like small feathers rustling.

"You've been in this office for two straight days now," CJ stated, "You're here when I get to the gym and you're when I leave. Tell me how many memos you've sent over this."

"That's not the point," Sam muttered. He brought his free hand up to rub his eyes under his glasses. He was slow, and heavy, and blurring at the edges. Looking down at his palm Sam searched for any fuzziness or twitches or glitching color that would signify he was leaving this reality. There was nothing out of the ordinary.

" _Bullshit_ that's not the point."

"Josh."

Josh and Leo spoke at the same time, static in the air and arguments about the sanctity of the office. Leo sounded more and more like a chastising father to each of them in turn. The concept of fathers made Sam's heart grow hot and sporadic.

"How many, Sam?" Bartlet said. He stood behind his desk, which was not his desk so much as it was the desk of the part he'd inherited. His eyes were fixed on his seal, which was not his seal so much as it was the seal of the part he'd inherited.

Sam dropped his hand to his side and found he didn't know what else to do with it. He grabbed the file with both hands, holding it in front of him like a beige shield against the cobalt carpet. But now he had no choice but to think about the file.

"Fifty-seven."

"And that's just the last two days, two, I mean my God is it so bad to live to fight another day on this thing?" CJ furrowed her eyebrows in an expression Sam recognized as judgemental disbelief. But it was bad to live another day, to go on kicking and crying and surviving when you shouldn't have and if you were in a slightly different place, you wouldn't have.

“But it's not enough!"

They couldn't understand, never, but they could know.

"It's not enough when you've been discharged for loving someone, it's not enough when you're freezing to death on the streets after leaving everything for democracy, it's-" Sam took a sharp breath through his lips and the air slid into his lungs like easy sleet, piercing his flesh.

Sam never wanted to be a keeper of secrets. He was never able to. Under his skin and in his blood lied the possibility of treason, and he would strangle it before it ever had the chance to see the light of day. Killing could be a kind of mercy.

"It's not enough when you're twelve years old," Sam said, and there was no going back, there only the road, and when he opened his mouth again it was like breathing for the first time after pneumonia.

Josh tried to catch his eye, but Sam was going long, he was going, he was gone.

"And. . . " Sam held the file in one hand again and dragged his glasses off his face. Everything was blurry now, and it was easier to be outside of it all.

"And sometimes kids beat you up, and most times they call you a fag, but all of the time you want to put a bullet in your brain and The President won't stop saying, 'Just don't talk about it'."

The silence in the room grew and grew like a garden-hose water balloon, the silence where you waited and waited for the other shoe to drop and the water to flood over until finally, finally, the weight might match the weight of knowledge that this room was not a room, it was The Oval Office.

No one said anything. Sam knew Leo and Bartlet would be wide-eyed and composed. And CJ would be confused, worrying at the wrists of her shirt. And Toby would be sad, just sad, in a way that screamed 'that's all there is'. And Josh would want to say, _I know, I see you and I know. It's not enough, but we have to pretend it means something, or else we'll end up killing ourselves after all, and we're not giving Democracy two more dead gays_ , but he wouldn't say anything. Sam could imagine it because Josh had said the exact words to him before, over a beer and through the shower curtain and across the expanse of Josh's queen bed with the blue sheets.

Josh thought they needed to play the long game, except it never ended. The finish line was always moved, and now with offices thirty feet from The Oval they still lied to each other and said they did what they could, all they could, but there was nothing more. If Sam couldn't take this, if he couldn't make this one stand, then what was it all for?

"I didn't talk about it." Sam worried at the edge of the folder and then met The President's eyes because it was still The Oval Office, he was still Deputy Communications Director, this was real life, and he did not get the assurance of hiding.

"I didn't talk about it. No one asked me about it."

Sam couldn't read him. He was never sure about other people, rarely fell to trust them completely. He did once with Bartlet, but that was shattered months ago in this same office, this office that was not any of their's and promised only to house them until they were swept away. Sam left The President's eyes to trace along the walls, the portraits, the soft carpet under his shoes. This might be one of the last times he was in this room. Sam wanted to throw something, chiefly, himself.

"It's just-" Sam looked to Toby, Toby the safe bet, Toby the brother he never had and found the same silent support.

"Save my grandmother and transferring schools I might be dead right now. And there's plenty of people who are dead. And plenty of kids that will start dying."

Outside, the wind pressed at the windows, soft and whining, and with the whip-crack of tree branches.

"Sam," Bartlet said. It was just his name, but it was smooth and final. Most times when Bartlet said, "Sam," it was like saying _Come off it now_ or _We've been waiting for you_.

Now when Bartlet said, "Sam," it was like saying _I really don't know what to say_.

Sam wanted to look at Josh, and so he did. He opened his mouth to say he was sorry, but that would be killing them both. Sam wasn't sorry, not one bit. 

"I'll leave," Sam said, and when he left the oval no one was sure what exactly he was talking about, least of all him. 


End file.
